I have never, EVER been fired from a job.

When I was twelve, babysitting was my first job.

I read stories, played games and watched TV with my little charges. 

I was always in high demand.

I worked at the Detroit Dragstrip when I was only 15 and thought it was funny to put a frozen burger in between a bun and watch for the reaction.

I never got caught and I never got fired.

I worked at the Custard Stand for 3 or 4 summers in a row and never got fired for all the custard I ate!

When I graduated from high school, I worked downtown Detroit in an insurance agency.  

My job was to send out thank-you gifts to people who allowed a representative into their homes to explain why they needed insurance.

I never got fired for sending more “gifts” than I should.

This is my husbands favorite job story of mine…..

I have NO IDEA how I got this job.

I was NOT qualified, not even close.

I was head bookkeeper at a small, local bank in a teeny town in Idaho.

HEAD BOOKKEEPER!

This was years and years and years before computers.

The woman I replaced taught me just enough to get by, just enough to be dangerous!

One of my jobs was to grab the INSUFFICIENT FUNDS checks that had been written and send a notification to whomever they were written to that there wasn’t enough funds to cover the check and I’d also have to fine the account that the check was written from.

I tried to do a good job, honest but it got to me.

It was still a time of innocence and I felt sad and sorry for people writing bad checks.  

It wasn’t like today.

No, these were checks for groceries, rent, utilities …..necessary stuff.

It was a VERY small town. 

No rich people.

They were farmers.

They grew potatoes.

One day I just couldn’t deal with it so I took the bad check and buried it deep in the bottom drawer of my desk.

It became a habit.

Bad check?

Bottom drawer.

I never thought the whole process through.

I honestly don’t know what happened.

Remember,there were NO computers yet.

There were never any consequences from my action.

I know that in today’s world, that couldn’t happen but, it did way back then.

I worked there less than 2 years.

There were no shredders then either.

When I quit, not fired…..the last thing I did was take the stack of bad checks and toss them in the trash. 

I did come close once at a small industrial place in Connecticut.

I worked the switchboard.

I almost got fired because I showed up in a skirt that the old bat who ran the place said was too short!

I went home and changed.

I’ve worked in 3 different hospitals, a cancer center administering chemotherapy, a fertility clinic and a large, well-known insurance company doing utilization review.

Never got fired.

But there was this one job…..

I was the Director of Nursing at a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly.

There were about 80 residents and I think the average age was close to 80.

But, that number meant nothing.

They were ageless, young-at-heart free spirits.

I called them THE WISDOM ONES because they were.

I fell in love with every single one of them…..well, except for one.

I could never reach her, no matter how hard I tried.

She was just damn crabby…..all the time.

Eventually I just gave up and let her crab at me.

Most of them owned homes in Pebble Beach.

They were college educated and some had become fairly well known artists, writers  and musicians.

They dressed each day as if they were attending a gala affair, the women in lovely dresses and beautiful jewelry and the men in starched shirts and suits.

Some took daily walks, the Pacific Ocean was 2 or 3 short blocks straight down from the facility.

Some just walked the grounds, some socialized in the main room and some just sat and waited, hoping for visitors.

We had a hoarder.

One of my jobs was to convince her to let loose with about 75% of the CRAP she had piled from the floor to the ceiling in every and I mean EVERY available spot in her apartment.

I had to walk sideways down her hallway to get to any of the rooms.

Once a week we met and talked about it.

She COULDN’T let go, not even one pile of magazines.

I didn’t understand but the session ended each time she begged and began to cry. I was NOT the person who was gonna do that to her.

I nick-named one of my sweet ladies, Aunt Rose simply because she reminded me of my Aunt Rose.

She took walks every day.

Our house was 3 blocks down from the facility.  

I had a flower pot on the porch, near the front door.

It was the shape of a big bare foot.

If I was home, Aunt Rose would come in for a cup of tea and a short visit.

If I wasn’t home, she’d move the foot so I’d know she’d been there.

S.K., another one of my ladies was a writer.  

She and I talked about words.

She was like a living dictionary.

She signed me up for a service I still get today called WORDSMITH.

Mr H., one of my favorite gentlemen had been a diver. 

I loved hearing his stories of the deep Canyons, Caverns and Kelp Forest of Monterey Bay.

A treasure I hold dear is a piece of jade given to me as a gift.

He dove for it in The Big Sur. 

I’ve BLOGGED about one of my all time favorites, Arthur.

(A 2-part Blog called “A.A., Affectionately Art.”)

Arthur caught my eye my very first day on that job.

He was a recluse and just LOOKED interesting…..different.

I needed to know him.

It took a while, I guess I had to earn his trust but eventually we became great friends.

Often when my work day was over, I’d zip home, get out of my work clothes and into jeans, stop at the market and get a couple bags of candy and head over to Arthurs room.

I’d sit with my feet propped up on his bed and we’d eat licorice and discuss the world.  

Arthur was an intellect.  

If you go to a search engine and tap in his name, Arthur Porges, you’ll see him.  

He wrote terrifying Science Fiction stories, about lizards with big tongues.

He even wrote me in to a few of them as a doctor.

He had a fan club in England!

True.

Everytime he’d sell a story and the check arrived, he’d take his “Usual Suspects” out for dinner.

His Usual Suspects were his home-health nurse, S.K. the writer like himself and me.

On beautiful, warm Ocean days, I’d put the top down on my car and take him for a ride along the coast during my lunch hour.

Arthur is an unforgettable character in my life.

B. & K. were two of the sweetest little ladies and they were inseparable.

Where you saw one, you saw the other.

B. was a nurse and my heart broke watching her care for her friend K. as she was making her exit from this planet.

B. never left her bedside.

And when K. finally left…..in a way, B. did too.

Mrs B. a sweet, wonderful woman who’d been a Sunday School Teacher, loved to bake.

Nothing thrilled her soul more than when we cleared out one of our small kitchens and let her bake cookies.

We had a bragger.

Who doesn’t know a bragger?

He’d been in the service and had attained a high ranking.

We heard his stories MANY times and we listened each time as if it were our first.

Mrs H., a 100 year old spinster, loved nothing more than to tend the flower gardens that surrounded the property.

Mrs B was a glamour-girl flirt who made a handful of the other ladies behave like jealous high-school girls.

G. was a world traveler who spoke several languages and traveled more than she was home.

We had a sweet, teeny little lady who was sure someone was always stealing her jewelry.

We were never able to convince her that absolutely no one ever went into her room.

Not even after we’d FIND the “missing” items each time.

One of or saddest ladies was Mrs N.

She was eternally hungry (I can relate!)

The food rule was strict. 

Nothing perishable was allowed in the Assisted Living rooms.  

They didn’t have refrigerators or protected places to keep food and it brought ants.  

A cookie or bag of candy was OK but not much more than that.

She spent her time in the dining room finding different ways to smuggle food to her room.

We usually caught her and darn it, it was sad to take it away from her.  

Another lovely lady who captured my heart was Ms B.

She had absolutely beautiful clothing and accessories.

Every day she’d come to my office, dressed as if she were going out on a very special day and really…..she was going nowhere.

Every day she would tell me how horrible it was to grow old.

I KNEW she was telling me the truth.

What I learned from her was how to embrace each day before it was me, dressed up with nowhere to go.

Mr J was in his eighties.  

He was horribly shy and he was gay.

He lived his entire life in denial of who he really was.

He broke my heart.

There were three married couples who lived in the Independent Wing of the facility.

All delightful.

One of the couples still owned a home smack across the street from a beautiful part of the Ocean.

It was situated so if you looked out of the living room windows, you could watch the sun set and from the dining room the sun would rise.

I’d never seen the morning sun rise over the ocean.

One day they called me to their apartment and gave me the key to their home.

They told me to go spend the night and watch the sun rise in the morning!!!!!

My husband, my 2 Schnauzers Bartles & Jaymes, a tray of cheese and crackers, a bottle of wine with two glasses, an alarm clock and two sleeping bags did just that.

We slept on the floor in the dining room, set the clock for early morning and well, it was an experience we still thrill about today.

The Administrator was a non-medical woman about my age at the time.

I tried to like her, honest.

But, she was just a nasty BEOTCH!

In my office, with the door shut, she was known by my residents as The Dragon Lady.

She held Staff Meetings every Monday.

After her door was safely closed, before the meeting began, she played, “WHO AM I?” and she mocked one of my beautiful people for the way they walked or talked or whatever.

THEY WERE 80-plus YEARS OLD!

Her staff of butt-kissers, were embarrassed but chuckled politely .

That made me think SO less of them.

There were two of us who sat side by side and I’m sure the look on our faces gave us away.

She disgusted both of us.

She wasn’t crude to just my people, she was also damn mean to some of the staff.

She made fun of me right smack to my face.

Thing is, I had zero respect for her so I didn’t care but, she made one of my dear friends cry, OFTEN!

My friend loved each resident as I did. 

She worked hard and was excellent at what she did but it was never enough for The Dragon Lady.

My friend would come into my office and I could see it on her face.

As soon as the door was shut, the tears would flow.

She took it SO hard.

That woman was a serious WITCH.

As much as I loved my friend…..I wanted her to quit!

And, eventually she did.

And then one day I hit MY limit.

I loved that job, I loved those amazing people but I didn’t think I was up to any more of the CRAP!

I cried at home that night.

My sweet man said one word…..”QUIT!”

I was toying with the idea seriously when WHAM, I got pushed over the edge.

My office was in the Assisted Living Wing.

The Independent people lived in a beautiful, big, old building that had once been a splendid hotel.

Everything in the Independent wing was lovely.

The Assisted Living Wing was very old and pretty bare, close to shabby (not chic!)

I went on a campaign to try to pretty it up for my people who lived there.

I rummaged through the basement storage area and found what I thought would work.

I put a comfy bench, table, lamps and some pictures on the wall at the entrance.  

It took on an inviting, kinda warm feel.

My ladies loved it.

They’d meet, sit and chat there.

Then one day the “jack-of-all-trades” guy came by, saw what I’d done, decided he liked the bench and could use it somewhere else and just took it!

He was the maintenance man and also in charge of housekeeping.

Oh and he was one of the BIGGER BUTT-KISSERS, so pretty much whatever he wanted he got.

I argued with him about that old bench.

Nope, he wanted it and he took it.

I marched into the Dragon Lady’s office with my complaint which fell on her deaf ears.

Right over the edge I went!

I returned to my office and sent The Dragon Lady an E-mail.  

All it said was …..

“I quit!  

I’ll stay until you find a replacement and I’ll help train her/him but I’m done.”

Truth be known, I think she was glad.

She didn’t really care for how much the residents liked me.

I could tell that by the way she mocked them AND me!

I was still stewing over the latest person she’d made fun of in her Monday meeting and now this.

She didn’t respond to my E-mail.

Another clue that she was glad I was leaving.

The next morning was FRIDAY PAYROLL day.

Part of my job was doing payroll for my staff.

My computer wouldn’t work.  

I didn’t know what to do.

I was then and still remain pretty much computer challenged!

I called Dragon Lady’s Assistant.

She was the computer whiz and my friend (so I thought!)

She came over from the main building, sat at my machine, did a few things and then said she’d have to check and come back.

Later she called and told me it would take a few days to fix.

I’d have to do the payroll by hand.

15 minutes before quitting time, Dragon Lady and her assistant (she who I THOUGHT was my friend) came into my office with big boxes in each hand.

“How long is it gonna take you to pack up and get outta here?” Dragon Lady wanted to know.

“I have no idea” was my response.

“Well, we’re not leaving until you’re packed and out of this building, AND she added, YOU’RE FIRED!”

“I’m NOT fired!

I QUIT!” was my only response.

At that, Dragon Lady and her assistant (my two-faced friend) began taking things off the walls, desk top, file cabinet and tossing everything in the boxes.  

As I watched them, I had an “aha moment” and realized there had been nothing wrong with my computer.

It had been shut-down on purpose.

In no time, my office was stripped.

By then, quite a few of my staff and residents had gathered around both of my office doors.

Their faces showed shock and sadness…..even a few tears.

Dragon Lady and her accomplice, put all the boxes in the hallway and locked both doors of the office that used to be mine.

One more time, spewing venom, she loudly stated,…..”YOU’RE FIRED.”

Fighting the urge to SCREAM, I calmly replied, “NOPE, I QUIT.”

I had called Lobo the moment they started undecorating and he arrived shortly after the drama.

He helped me load the boxes and I hugged the workers and residents that were still standing in the hall…..shocked at what they’d just witnessed.

When we got home…..I cried.

My answering machine was blinking. 

It was full of sad messages from my workers and some of my residents.

One of the calls was from the mom of one of my young Aides who had witnessed the scene.

Her mom was the Director at the nearby Chemo Center.

She offered me a job, right on my message machine!

The day after the drama, I was in Hallmark purchasing packages of small cards.

I wrote a note to every single resident, even the crabby one.

I mailed over eighty cards within the next few days, saying good-bye and that I’d never, EVER forget them and…..I never have. 

When Dragon Lady found that I was still entering the building and visiting Arthur and a few of my other friends, she put out an “all alerts bulletin” instructing every employee that I had to come in from the front door and sign in.  

I didn’t!

We moved from Pacific Grove a few years later and for quite a long time, I wrote back and forth to many of those awesome people.

One by one I received notes from either their family or some of my crew, letting me know that another one of my WISDOM ONES had left this planet.

Arthur’s sister-in-law called me when Arthur left. 

She sent me a book he’d written.

I cried.

They’re almost all gone now, all 80-plus amazing people…..oh and one crab. 

Sweet Mrs B who was the Sunday School Teacher and loved to bake is my only remaining resident and she’s the final chapter of that time in my life.   

KAREN and I were co-workers.  

We loved our residents and had the same work ethic. 

Some time during those years that we worked together, we crossed over and became friends.

We’ve both moved on from the facility and Pacific Grove but still we stay in touch.

In fact, she and I probably communicate via machine almost every day.

The following week, after I was tossed out of my office, I was being taught my new job…..Chemo Nurse.

I met a Clinic FULL of new friends.

Chemo Nurses are THE BEST!

And my patients?

What amazing people and what lessons THEY had to teach.

One lady lived down The Big Sur…..neighbors to one of The Beach Boys!

One was a big time movie star.  She had a sibling who was also a star and I guess they didn’t get along because when she was coming in for Chemo, we were reminded NOT to mention the other sibling!

One was a man in his early 50’s.  

He always requested I be his nurse.

He liked my needle techinique!

He always carried a Hackie Sack ball with him.

Just before he died, he had flowers delivered to me WITH his Hackie Sack ball.

That STILL brings a lump to my throat.

And, the amazing woman who lived down The Big Sur.  

She invited me for tea one day.

She lived up on a hill in the trees overlooking the Pacific.

She was a writer.

She read my ACM book and wrote me such a lovely note about it. 

It’s a treasure to me still, all these years later.

She loved to travel.

Her months were numbered and she wanted to take one more cruise but needed a nurse to go with her.

She invited me, all expenses paid.

The last big boat I’d been on was The “Bob-Lo Boat” IN A STORM!

I had to say thank you, I was honored but no.

Some of the greatest lessons I’ve learned are from some of the greatest people I’ve had the honor of knowing.

A follow up?

I think Dragon Lady’s assistant……my friend who wasn’t, had big thoughts of someday taking over as the Administer but guess what? 

Within a year, Dragon Lady fired her! 

Karma?

AND…..a year or so later, the main office fired The Dragon Lady! 

That was FIRED, not QUIT!

Super Dooper Karma?

The Dragon Lady is now very close in age to what those wonderful people were when she made fun of them behind her closed office door on those Monday morning meetings.

I wonder…..

How steady is her gait? 

Can she stand up straight? 

Is she riddled with and crippled from the pain of arthritis?

Are her reactions slowed?

Does she forget her words?

Is her make-up sometimes applied less than perfect?

Is she sometimes not aware that her sweater is on inside-out?

Can she see the soiled spot on her dress?

How would she feel to be mocked just because she got old?

I hope when sne looks into a mirror, she she’s an old woman with gray hair and wrinkles and maybe has shame for the things she did behind a closed door on Monday Mornings.

But maybe Dragon Ladies have no remorse?

I had a rock that I kept on my desk.

The word WISDOM was etched in it.

Whenever one of my people would come sit in my office and talk with me, I’d ask them to hold my WISDOM rock.

Sometimes when I’m troubled, sad or confused…..I sit and hold my WISDOM rock and ya know what?

I feel them and their vibrations always give me the strength and answers to keep on goin’.